Things Political
"Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics" Charles Peguy
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July 20th, 2009
From Fr. Frank Pavone's Priest for Life website:
guise of "health
In case you don't know, under the guise of "health care reform" Congress is about to pass a stealth version of the Freedom of Choice Act! And to make matters worse, they will force YOU to pay for the killings that will follow!
Make no mistake. The "health care reform" bills being finalized in Congress will set off a chain reaction that will result in a massive expansion of abortion!
That's because unless Congress explicitly states that abortion is excluded, it will be regarded as "an essential benefit" for Americans. Once that's done, insurance companies would be forced to cover elective abortions which would in turn force local health networks to recruit and hire abortionists.
And to make matters even worse, because these would be federal mandates ...
... state laws that now restrict abortion will probably be overturned!
As I said, this is FOCA in disguise!
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July 21st, 2009
Obama's Health Care
(from NewsMax)
Discrimination against the elderly when it comes to healthcare is not discrimination — at least not to a key member of the Barack Obama administration.
Ezekiel Emanuel is director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and an architect of Obama's healthcare reform plan. He is also the brother of Rahm Emanuel, Obama's White House chief of staff.
Express Riders, the blog of conservative businessman and philanthropist Foster Friess, reports that Ezekiel Emanuel has written that health services should not be guaranteed to "individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens."
He also stated, "An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia," according to Friess' site.
Friess also points to an equally troubling article co-authored by Emanuel, which appeared in the medical journal The Lancet in January. It read in part: "Unlike allocation [of healthcare] by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination. Every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age.
"Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.
"Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not."
Friess asks: "Are these the values we want undergirding our healthcare system?"
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July 22nd, 2009
Senate and House to vote in late July on biggest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade!
WASHINGTON (Updated July 20, 2009) – Congressional Democratic leaders are aiming to bring massive "health care reform" bills to the floor of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives as soon as late July -- bills that National Right to Life says "would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade."
On July 15, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved a massive bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) on a 13-10 party line vote. A similar bill, H.R. 3200, backed by the House Democratic leadership, was approved by two House committees, with a third committee set to vote on it during the week of July 20. The White House supports the Kennedy bill and H.R. 3200.
"The Kennedy bill and the House Democratic leadership bill would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "These bills, which President Obama is pushing hard, would result in federally mandated coverage of abortion by nearly all health plans, federally mandated recruitment of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many state abortion laws. They would also result in federal funding of abortion on a massive scale. The pro-life movement needs to go to Condition Red on these bills, because they pose a mortal threat to the unborn and they are on a fast track to enactment."
Before approving the Kennedy bill, the Senate HELP Committee rejected a series of NRLC-backed amendments offered by pro-life Republican members of the committee. Specifically, the committee's Democrats (with the exception of Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.) voted down an amendment by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wy.) to prevent health plans from being required to pay for and provide access to abortions, an amendment by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to prevent federal funding of abortions, and an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) to prevent nullification of many state laws regulating abortion. The pro-abortion majority even rejected a second Coburn amendment to protect the right of health-care providers to refuse to participate directly in providing abortions.
Similar pro-life amendments were voted down in the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee, as only a few Democrats joined the committees' minority Republican members in support of the unsuccessful amendments.
On July 20 or 21, the House Energy & Commerce Committee is expected to consider similar NRLC-backed pro-life amendments, proposed by Congressman Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mi.). The members of this committee are listed here.
To view or download a detailed factsheet on the pro-abortion provisions of H.R. 3200 (PDF format), click here. The factsheet explains, among other things, why the longstanding "Hyde Amendment" would not prevent massive federal subsidies for abortion under the Obama-backed bills.
The imposition of sweeping pro-abortion mandates as part of “health care reform” is currently the top priority of many pro-abortion organizations, such as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). These organizations are pushing for the abortion mandates both in public statements and in less visible lobbying efforts. In April, the president of PPFA said that her organization intends to use the health care legislation as a "platform" to guarantee access to abortion to "all women." Likewise, the National Abortion Federation, an association of abortion providers, said, "NAF supports health care reform as a way to increase access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion care, for all women."
A third version of health-care restructuring legislation is still being written, behind closed doors, by members of the Senate Finance Committee.
On July 17, 2007, during Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, he appeared before the annual conference of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Speaking of his plans for "health care reform," Obama said, "in my mind, reproductive care is essential care, basic care, so it is at the center, the heart of the plan that I propose." [emphasis added] Under his plan, Obama explained, people could choose to keep their existing private health care plans, but "insurers are going to have to abide by the same rules in terms of providing comprehensive care, including reproductive care ... that's going to be absolutely vital."
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